Despite its problems, the fracking boom is still better than burning coal.

Fracking—the use of hydraulic pressure to crack layers of shale that hold oil and natural gas—is controversial. That’s one thing we know about a debate that mainly focuses on what we don’t know. The most common concern is the contamination of drinking water, either by the chemicals used in the fracking fluid or by liberated natural gas. And this issue has entered the public consciousness through media like the film Gasland and its imagery of flaming faucets—though almost 40 percent of people in the US say they’ve never heard of fracking.

In interviews promoting the recent sequel to Gasland, filmmaker Josh Fox has given voice to a new claim being made by opponents of fracking—that shale gas is just as bad for the climate as coal, and it might even be worse.

Throughout the US shale gas boom, natural gas has been described as a “bridge fuel”—a lower-CO2 alternative to coal that yields immediate emissions reductions while renewable energy grows into the long-term solution. This is because burning natural gas—chiefly composed of methane, a molecule with one carbon atom and four hydrogens—produces less CO2 than coal does when generating the same amount of energy.

However, there's another factor to consider. Methane is also a potent greenhouse gas, so any leakage of natural gas into the atmosphere before it’s burned eats into those CO2 savings. Unlike CO­2, though, methane doesn’t last very long in the atmosphere. After an average of 12 years, methane reacts with hydroxyl molecules to form CO2 and water.

If you want to compare the warming power of the two greenhouse gases, you have to pick a length of time to average over. Including the way methane interacts with aerosols involved in cloud formation, the latest research puts the pound-for-pound greenhouse potency of methane at about 105 times that of CO2 over a 20 year timeframe. Consider the difference over a century, however, and the multiplier drops to about 33 times.

Since a little bit of methane goes a long way as far as greenhouse warming is concerned, it’s important to understand how much natural gas is leaking when evaluating the effectiveness of natural gas as a “bridge fuel." A confusing chorus of information about how much leakage is taking place has come out over the past couple years. So what do we actually know?

Balancing the ledger

Understanding the methane that’s already up in the atmosphere is a good place to start. Unlike carbon dioxide’s relentless march toward higher concentrations, the rise in methane has actually slowed recently. From 1985 to 2000, the global average concentration (methane varies quite a bit from pole to pole) rose from a little over 1,650 parts per billion to about 1,770 parts per billion. From 2000 to 2007, however, it barely budged. After 2007, it bucked the stabilizing trend and began to climb again, reaching about 1,815 parts per billion in 2013.

Enlarge/ Average atmospheric methane concentration in parts per billion. (Year 2013 data in chart has not been finalized.)

Figure courtesy of Ed Dlugokencky, NOAA

Many factors affect the amount of methane in the atmosphere, so this doesn’t necessarily tell us whether the shale gas boom of the 2000s has released significant amounts of methane. The gas is produced by many sources—some human-caused, some not. Microbes are the biggest source. Archaea can make their homes in low-oxygen environments like wetlands, but they are also responsible for the methane generated in the digestive systems of cud-chewing animals like cows, as well as termites. Incomplete combustion of organic matter during wildfires and biofuel use are also sources. And, of course, natural gas that escapes into the atmosphere from underground reservoirs of hydrocarbons is another.

A recent effort by a large team of researchers identified decreasing natural gas emissions by humans as one contributor to the leveling off of atmospheric methane from the 1980s to the 2000s. However, they also concluded that an uptick since 2007 could be partly related to the shale gas boom.

The researchers' best estimate of the amount of methane coming from natural gas in the US is much smaller than the leakage rates that some fracking opponents suggest. The uncertainty in these estimates is big enough that higher leakage rates cannot be ruled out, though.

University of California, Irvine researcher Isobel Simpson, who was a part of that research team, has also studied this question from a slightly different angle. While natural methane emissions can vary quite a bit from year to year (wet or dry conditions, for example, affect wetland emissions), methane’s chemical cousin ethane is a little simpler to monitor. Because it only lasts a couple months in the atmosphere, it’s easier to track short-term changes. Natural sources are also much smaller, making the impact of ethane escaping from fossil fuels more obvious.

Ethane is much scarcer than methane in the atmosphere, being found at concentrations about a thousand times lower. And since at least as far back as 1985, it’s been on the decline. Simpson described a 2012 paper on the topic to Ars, saying that she and her colleagues “argue that ethane's long-term decline was mostly caused by declining fugitive fossil fuel sources [like] venting and flaring.” Flaring—that is, burning—some natural gas converts hydrocarbons like methane to carbon dioxide, but some escapes uncombusted. “In addition,” Simpson said, “the former Soviet Union tightened their pipelines (reduced leakage) in the early 1990s, which we believe contributed to the slower growth of both ethane and methane circa 1992.”

But here, too, there are signs that the decline of ethane may have leveled off over the last decade. “So is this the end of reductions of venting and flaring, or is it continued venting and flaring reductions offset by an increase in some other fossil fuel source such as increased emissions from fracking?” Simpson asked. While there’s been no detectable increase in ethane in the northern mid-latitudes where the shale gas boom is playing out, it’s too early to draw conclusions. “We are certainly keeping an eye on this,” Simpson said.

In an article published in the journal Science, several researchers laid out what we know about the rise of atmospheric methane since 2007. They noted that human-caused emissions have likely increased over the last few years, driven by the growing production of shale gas in the US and of coal in China (mining coal also releases methane). However, the changing isotopic fingerprint of atmospheric methane seems to point to wetlands and cud-chewing animals as the dominant culprits. Unfortunately, our network of methane sampling isn’t good enough to be sure what to make of those facts.

That means we have to come back down to Earth and try to find out how much methane is escaping from each natural gas well, adding up to a total estimate of fracking’s climate impact.

Leakage is a problem, but it is a problem that will go away for a simple reason: profit motive. Fracker's will become more efficient at extracting the gas over time because the leakage is lost earnings. It's big bucks going up into thin air. If we come back to this in five-ten years, all else being equal, we'll probably find the producer leakage rate to be lower.

All said, coal is a disaster. Natural gas may not be ideal, but it offers big CO2 reductions. The green movement needs to learn to be cooperative, rather than resistive. The two industries can put their heads together to work on mitigating production issues. The best results have come from green-industry collaboration rather than out-right opposition.

I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use fracking. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use coal. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use nuclear. The thing is, we have to use SOMETHING, and we can't generate enough through solar and wind to meet our energy needs.

Based on angry posts in my Facebook news feed, nuclear is hated the most, followed by fracking, and with few or no people complaining about coal. This strikes me as very odd, because in terms of energy produced compared to human and environmental cost of those three options, nuclear seems the best, followed by fracking, with coal as a very very distant third.

Regardless of how relatively good or bad fracking is compared to coal, the bottom line is we need to get away from fossil fuels ASAP. So the recent fracking boom seems to me like it can only prolong our dependence.

"Fracking" itself uses up both energy and precious water resources. Not to mention causes other pollution. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not exactly a reasonable solution. Why is this still being peddled to us, while the elephants in the room - slashing energy wastage and consumption too - are being ignored. Who benefits from this horribly misplaced focus in the employment and protection of society's resources?

Regardless of how relatively good or bad fracking is compared to coal, the bottom line is we need to get away from fossil fuels ASAP. So the recent fracking boom seems to me like it can only prolong our dependence.

True, we should move to an renewable all-electric economy as quickly as possible. but pragmatism also plays a role. There a no magic solutions. Between coal and gas, gas is the lesser evil. Not ideal, but it's progress.

It would be nice to see leadership that uses a cooperative approach rather than a confrontational one. It produces better results faster.

while the elephants in the room - slashing energy wastage and consumption too - are being ignored.

Although there's still a lot of room for improvements in efficiency, the reality is efficiency has been greatly increased over the last decades. I saw something about how the national electricity grid has repeatedly overshot it's power-need projections over the past five years or so. They keep over-estimating the power the nation will need as consumers have become more efficient users.

One important take away from this, in my opinion, is that as far as leakage is concerned, a lot of the problems described here are technically solvable issues. We can make our gas production and shipment leak less, and therefore reduce its environmental impact. Its just a matter of wanting to do it. With coal, its not clear that we really can reduce its carbon foot print that much, although perhaps carbon capture or some such technology might change things in this regard.

Sure, frack away, just don't count on drinkable aquifers in the future.

edited to add:The fracking process is linked to groundwater contamination and aquifer depletion, the process involves pumping millions of gallons of chemical laden water at high pressure into the ground. I truly don't give a shit about the down votes, but I do wonder why so many people seem to be reflexively bothered by acknowledging the negative aspects of fracking.

I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use fracking. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use coal. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use nuclear. The thing is, we have to use SOMETHING, and we can't generate enough through solar and wind to meet our energy needs.

Based on angry posts in my Facebook news feed, nuclear is hated the most, followed by fracking, and with few or no people complaining about coal. This strikes me as very odd, because in terms of energy produced compared to human and environmental cost of those three options, nuclear seems the best, followed by fracking, with coal as a very very distant third.

My takeaway from issues like this is...people keep wanting a perfect solution, something squeaky clean with no bad side effects. When it comes to our energy needs, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

We have a proven technology for generating carbon-free electricity without the limitations of wind or solar power. Nuclear power. And abundant fuel resources if we use U-238 and Th-232 as fuel instead of just naturally fissionable and rare U-235.

"Fracking" itself uses up both energy and precious water resources. Not to mention causes other pollution. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not exactly a reasonable solution. Why is this still being peddled to us, while the elephants in the room - slashing energy wastage and consumption too - are being ignored.

We can reduce our energy consumption, but we can't reduce it to zero. I'm all for reducing energy consumption, but we still need large-scale sources of energy production.

What methods of large-scale energy production do you support? Coal? Oil? Nuclear?

I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use fracking. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use coal. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use nuclear. The thing is, we have to use SOMETHING, and we can't generate enough through solar and wind to meet our energy needs.

Based on angry posts in my Facebook news feed, nuclear is hated the most, followed by fracking, and with few or no people complaining about coal. This strikes me as very odd, because in terms of energy produced compared to human and environmental cost of those three options, nuclear seems the best, followed by fracking, with coal as a very very distant third.

My experience is that peoples' fear of things is directly inversely proportional to how much they understand them. Nuclear power is, so far as most people understand, evil magic, and so greatly feared. Fracking makes a little more sense, but involves complicated drilling and things that are somewhat complicated, so that is feared, but not as much as nuclear. Coal is pretty easy to understand - you dig coal out of the ground and throw it in a big boiler. Makes sense. Fear level: low. I suspect that if there were power plants that used big bonfires of leaves and lumber, people would fear it the least.

Why is this still being peddled to us, while the elephants in the room - slashing energy wastage and consumption too - are being ignored. Who benefits from this horribly misplaced focus in the employment and protection of society's resources?

Why are you wasting valuable wattage commenting on the internet when you could turn that computer off and stop killing the planet?

I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use fracking. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use coal. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use nuclear. The thing is, we have to use SOMETHING, and we can't generate enough through solar and wind to meet our energy needs.

Based on angry posts in my Facebook news feed, nuclear is hated the most, followed by fracking, and with few or no people complaining about coal. This strikes me as very odd, because in terms of energy produced compared to human and environmental cost of those three options, nuclear seems the best, followed by fracking, with coal as a very very distant third.

The real irony with the fear of nuclear is that your typical nuclear power plant produces fewer radioactive emissions than the typical coal power plant.

Really, nuclear power suffers from bad press more than ineffectiveness. If we thought of coal mining accidents and damage from coal mining in the same context as nuclear disasters, we'd probably notice that we destroy more of the landscape mining coal than Chernobyl did with it's idiotic safeguard testing disaster.

I'm not going to instantly jump on the thorium bandwagon here, but really, there are very viable nuclear alternatives to minimize coal usage. That's without even considering shale gas in the picture.

I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use fracking. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use coal. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use nuclear. The thing is, we have to use SOMETHING, and we can't generate enough through solar and wind to meet our energy needs.

Based on angry posts in my Facebook news feed, nuclear is hated the most, followed by fracking, and with few or no people complaining about coal. This strikes me as very odd, because in terms of energy produced compared to human and environmental cost of those three options, nuclear seems the best, followed by fracking, with coal as a very very distant third.

My experience is that peoples' fear of things is directly inversely proportional to how much they understand them. Nuclear power is, so far as most people understand, evil magic, and so greatly feared. Fracking makes a little more sense, but involves complicated drilling and things that are somewhat complicated, so that is feared, but not as much as nuclear. Coal is pretty easy to understand - you dig coal out of the ground and throw it in a big boiler. Makes sense. Fear level: low. I suspect that if there were power plants that used big bonfires of leaves and lumber, people would fear it the least.

I have to agree with this. It certainly extends beyond energy discussions as well.

It also doesn't help when things happen out of people's control that are legitimately scary. Fukushima, and Chernobyl are scary events (though the media has capitalized on making it more scary than it really should be.) A scary event combined with a lack of understanding behind it? Terrifying. The evil sorcerers screwed up the spells and really bad things happened.

The unfortunate part is, once a fear is in people's minds, it's hard to get out. Educating people to understand the reality of nuclear power is important, but you can't educate someone who won't listen because they're scared of the topic.

Don't know what the solution is there, but we need it. Gas is great as a transition technology to renewables, but both are not good solutions for base load generation. We should be using fission technologies to provide our energy backbone as a transition technology until fusion is viable.

Sure, frack away, just don't count on drinkable aquifers in the future.

The reality is, it's already badly polluted from decades of neglect and a myriad of sources. Cleaning up the water supply goes way beyond fracking. Agricultural contamination, waste treatment, etc. are huge water pollution sources. The Great Lakes are essentially septic tanks, and they're massive fresh water supplies. Freaking out about some methane in well water, is missing the forest for the trees. I'm not defending any contamination fracking is causing, but the data indicates it's marginal compared to the major factors such as agriculture. Rather than butt heads with the fracker's, solutions should be found collaboratively. The overall benefit of reduced CO2 from gas, and the economic value of domestic production, is a net positive over the previous model of coal and imported oil.

As someone who comes from a area where fracking is prevalent, I can say fracking is a shit idea. There is direct evidence that fracking causes geological instability, ruins water tables, and is really unnecessary. Problem is most people dont have to deal with the down sides of this technology, they just make a quick buck and move on.

Sure, frack away, just don't count on drinkable aquifers in the future.

The reality is, it's already badly polluted from decades of neglect and a myriad of sources. Cleaning up the water supply goes way beyond fracking. Agricultural contamination, waste treatment, etc. are huge water pollution sources. The Great Lakes are essentially septic tanks, and they're massive fresh water supplies. Freaking out about some methane in well water, is missing the forest for the trees. I'm not defending any contamination fracking is causing, but the data indicates it's marginal compared to the major factors such as agriculture. Rather than butt heads with the fracker's, solutions should be found collaboratively. The overall benefit of reduced CO2 from gas, and the economic value of domestic production, is a net positive over the previous model of coal and imported oil.

BS. I have seen numerous examples where I am from of water tables changing after fracking wells are set up. You don't honestly think nothing bad will happen when you put so much pressure behind a nasty liquid you are trying to pump down a hole do you? Try opening a pop bottle after shaking it good and hard and control the blast.

It also doesn't help when things happen out of people's control that are legitimately scary. Fukushima, and Chernobyl are scary events (though the media has capitalized on making it more scary than it really should be.) A scary event combined with a lack of understanding behind it? Terrifying. The evil sorcerers screwed up the spells and really bad things happened.

I agree. And the crazy thing is, once someone looks into it, Fukushima isn't as scary as the media has made it out to be. Hell, nobody has died, and the only people who were hospitalized were (1) hospitalized during the initial incident, and (2) were hospitalized for heat burns, not radiation poisoning. For contrast, in a typical year, coal mines kill about 35 American coal miners and about 3,000 Chinese coal miners, even without including black lung deaths or decreased life expectancy due to groundwater pollution from coal mining operations.

The second-worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen hasn't killed anyone. And the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen killed about as many people as Chinese coal mines kill every three months.

How about putting a solar panel on every roof in the country? We would cut our dependence on the electrical grid in half, even in cloudy areas. Not like its going to be in the way of anything. People wouldn't even need batteries as they don't really want to disconnect from the grid. Just takes some of the load off during the day.

How about putting a solar panel on every roof in the country? We would cut our dependence on the electrical grid in half, even in cloudy areas. Not like its going to be in the way of anything. People wouldn't even need batteries as they don't really want to disconnect from the grid. Just takes some of the load off during the day.

The main objection to that idea is that for the amount it would cost, you would get a far larger benefit by doing something else with those resources.

Really, nuclear power suffers from bad press more than ineffectiveness. If we thought of coal mining accidents and damage from coal mining in the same context as nuclear disasters, we'd probably notice that we destroy more of the landscape mining coal than Chernobyl did with it's idiotic safeguard testing disaster.

I think it's very bad form to compare coal mining to the use of enriched uranium in a power plant.

A meaningful comparison would be coal mining and uranium mining (and processing). Without more information I can't give nuclear an automatic win.

And you could also compare disasters, like coal ash releases and Chernobal and Fukoshima. Since Fukoshima is still a work in progress, we may have to wait for a valid comparison.

How about putting a solar panel on every roof in the country? We would cut our dependence on the electrical grid in half, even in cloudy areas. Not like its going to be in the way of anything. People wouldn't even need batteries as they don't really want to disconnect from the grid. Just takes some of the load off during the day.

Two problems with that plan:

(1) Solar panels aren't cheap. Who is going to pay for this?

(2) Solar panels take energy to make. The materials they're made of take energy to mine out of the earth. There are a lot of places where the local climate is not well-suited to solar, and the energy production during a solar panel's life span may not significantly exceed the energy required to mine its raw components and manufacture it.

Solar is a good solution in certain circumstances, but it certainly isn't a one-size-fits-all solution.

The current industrial infrastructure must be abandoned. If we don't do it, nature will do it for us. It is most likely already too late for nature not to take over.

Well, you're more than welcome to set the example. Since you're posting on the internet you're using the results of the "current industrial infrastructure" feel free to cease these harmful activities. I look forward to receiving word of your wonderful life in a naturally occurring cave that you harmoniously share with the local wildlife - I expect I will receive such notice written on a piece of bark that fell off a tree on it's own written in the juice of fallen berries. (Though really shame on you for taking those berries away from birds and rodents who need it, and think of all the termite children who will go hungry without that bark...)

I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use fracking. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use coal. I know people who are adamant that we shouldn't use nuclear. The thing is, we have to use SOMETHING, and we can't generate enough through solar and wind to meet our energy needs.

Based on angry posts in my Facebook news feed, nuclear is hated the most, followed by fracking, and with few or no people complaining about coal. This strikes me as very odd, because in terms of energy produced compared to human and environmental cost of those three options, nuclear seems the best, followed by fracking, with coal as a very very distant third.

The real irony with the fear of nuclear is that your typical nuclear power plant produces fewer radioactive emissions than the typical coal power plant.

Really, nuclear power suffers from bad press more than ineffectiveness. If we thought of coal mining accidents and damage from coal mining in the same context as nuclear disasters, we'd probably notice that we destroy more of the landscape mining coal than Chernobyl did with it's idiotic safeguard testing disaster.

I'm not going to instantly jump on the thorium bandwagon here, but really, there are very viable nuclear alternatives to minimize coal usage. That's without even considering shale gas in the picture.

Man lived happily up to 1850 without spoiling his host Earth. Get some perspective.

I'm pretty sure there were quite a lot of men who were definitely not living happily in 1850. Slaves, for instance. Those infected with smallpox, or measles, or cholera, or typhus, or typhoid fever, or rubella (German measles), or... Or many women, who you conveniently failed to mention.

And, as for not spoiling his host Earth...you may have heard of Easter Island, yes? That's a particularly prominent example of pre-industrial ecological disaster, but there were many other more localized disasters or damage done to living ecologies by pre-industrial peoples.